61–65 of 65 posts
No reason why a game specific store shouldn't exist. If the user goes the distance to install the Amazon store, chances are they will install another.
Amazon steeply discounts a large chunk of its Appstore catalog (imagine: "our top 100-rated games are all 75% off!"). Some developers will probably win in this scenario, but some developers -- most likely, those near the bottom of the list -- will lose, not gaining enough sales to offset the loss in revenue per sale. Amazon benefits the most, because it captures all the customer goodwill generated by such a promotion…
The fact that they require price control, as a condition of doing business, tells me that Amazon expects this policy to hurt developers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did they close it? This is how all my iOS apps generate revenue. They're all free with In-App Purchases. It works great. Also, why would anyone consider this a "loophole"?
Apple are taking their 30% cut, right? I'm not sure how Amazon's terms interact with in-app purchases, but presumably they've thought of this. If the NYT sells an app with bundled one-year subscription, Apple gets 30%; if the NYT sells (well, sold) an app and a separate one-year subscription, Apple gets nothing. If the original app is sufficiently useless, this "in-app purchase" is clearly just a way of not paying Ap…
The complaint is in regards to Amazon controlling the cost of the app rather than the developer controlling the cost of the app. That's all. Gacba was simply saying that if you don't want Amazon controlling the cost of your app, then make it free and sell in-app purchases. Since Amazon doesn't control how much you sell your in-app purchases for, they lose total control over the cost of your app and the developer gains the control back.
I understand the ire, but still... IGDA can pool resources, and are in perfect position to start their very own branded Android store where they can set the rules as they see fit. No reason why a game specific store shouldn't exist. If the user goes the distance to install the Amazon store, chances are they will install another.
It's a total misunderstanding of the market, and it does quite a poor job of selling games (at least from a customer's perspective), which is the thing you really want in an app store.
Amazon does however have an incentive to maximize revenue and there is a lower bound to what a developer gets (a percentage of the list price), even if Amazon promotes it for free, so Amazon loses money on that. I think Amazon is better at optimizing pricing than most game developers are, so I expect this to improve revenue for both Amazon and the game developers. But only time will tell for sure. Panicking is not th…
For many of the discounted apps, those that depend on the purchase revenue (vs. ad-based) and that might be fad, or temporarily popular, this could effectively kill them off in the name of helping Amazon.